this moment {first swim}

Joining Soulemama, and many others, in this moment. 

In Amanda's words: "A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

Please link to your moment too -- I love to see what you are enjoying this week!

Wishing you a weekend full of exuberant goodness!

play

As we stand in this uncomfortable space between winter and spring it is clear that indoor play is the play du jour.

I hate to admit that outside is otherwise too cold with not enough snow, or two muddy because what little snow there has been has melted.  So inside we are.

Luckily the kids haven't noticed my distemper and have simply played on...

:: Dinosaur Bingo

:: humans vs. zombies, which basically involves much running around, arms outstretched and moaning

:: Monopoly

:: paper crafting of all kinds, a delightful find at a used book shop, Tic Tac Paw anyone?

:: Don't Break the Ice

:: projects with cardboard and tin foil

:: building fast moving space ships with pillows, blankets and chairs

:: a homemade paper version of Plants vs. Zombies

:: and the always popular pull-everything-out-of-the-kitchen-cupboard-because-I-can-game

I've found that their ability to keep playing, no matter what, has brought out some rarely played games, has sparked creativity, and has even drawn me off of the current homekeeping treadmill into enjoying a moment or two of play myself.

Making this space, and the waiting, just a bit more comfortable...

this moment

Joining Soulemama, and many others, in this moment. 

In Amanda's words: "A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

Please link to your moment too -- I love to see what you are enjoying this week!

Wishing you a weekend full of goodness!

summer

It is beginning to look alot like summer around here.

Inside the house anyway.

While I have been lamenting the lingering cold and persistent flurries, my kids have taken matters into their own hands.  They have skipped right over spring and are jumping into summer by swimming in the bathtub, and playing on an indoor soccer field, and making various playgrounds with piles of pillows and long lines of dining room chairs.

And those colanders and cake pans?  Skates, naturally. 

peek

I think this is all you need to see to have some insight into my days of late...

this moment {clapping}

Joining Soulemama, and many others, in this moment. 

In Amanda's words: "A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

Please link to your moment too -- I love to see what you are enjoying this week!

Wishing you a weekend full of goodness!

change of scenery

So a change of scenery is what is needed when it feels like winter will never end, you can't focus on any one thing, and the sun has been playing hide and seek for days.

A change of scenery.  With color.  With light.  With ice cream.

It helps to take a camera along.  If only to have a few moments of true focus.  Focus on the single view through the lens.

And ice cream never hurts.

bits

My recent days have had a fragmentary quality.  Unconnected moments following one after the other.

Bits of this and bits of that. 

Some snow, some sun.  Some laundry, dishes, floors.  Starting and stopping blog posts.  Encouraging mud play, cleaning up mud play, then prohibiting mud play.  Toys taken out, toys cleaned up.  Packing a box, then forgetting to rearrange the now uncluttered space.  Take calls, make calls.  Checking e-mail for a message from the realtor.  Checking online for any houses we might not have noticed before.

Ah yes, that most achingly bittersweet decision we've been grappling with for a long, long time is one of buying a new house and moving to a new community.  We've thought and daydreamed about a possible move for over a year, driving neighborhoods, looking at schools, getting to know places.  So this is not a spur of the moment decision.  However, it has been theoretical.

Until last week, when we thought there might actually be a house for us.  We put our financial ducks in a row, made some important decisions about what to do with our current house, and spent some time in the house and on the property.

The house wasn't for us.

Even though the nervous feeling that began last week stopped when we decided that this wasn't our house, a sort of indistinguishable anticipation has begun.  A start and stop of anxiety that can only come with wondering.  Wondering what if, and perhaps, and when, and certainly before school begins in the fall...

So the start and stop has manifested itself in my daily doings as well.  I start something at the computer then move to laundry, then check my phone, then notice the baby is growing a new tooth and learning to climb down the stairs.

I'm trying to remind myself that these bits, as unconnected as they seem, are really the collective moments of life as I know it right now.

And it's ok.  And it's good.  And simply keep the realtor fed with homemade bread (and on speed dial to be certain.)

this moment {breakfast}

Joining Soulemama, and many others, in this moment. 

In Amanda's words: "A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

Please link to your moment too -- I love to see what you are enjoying this week!

Wishing you a weekend full of goodness!

what remains

A bit of snow remains on the ground.  Just enough to scrape up with mittened hands to throw at your siblings and neighborhood friends.

The kids have spent the afternoons outside making the most of what white remains.  In its subtle spring way the snow is making and making way for the mud.  And we do get our share of mud.

The sunshine has been gloriously streaming in the windows these past three days.  I love the warmth, even as it highlights the accumulating dust.  I've never been a very good spring cleaner, I've been a nester.  So, I've had to re-think how I might tackle that task this season.

We've a big decision ahead, very big.  So a nervous bundle remains in my stomach.  The kind of nervousness you feel when you meet someone you like (will they call?) or when you are anticipating labor (will it be today?) or when you maybe have just had a bit too much coffee.  So please think of me dear friends over the next days and week.  Thanks.

What remains with you?

weekending

Ours is a full three-day weekend.

:: watching Pal take his first steps.  First Steps!

:: enjoying the gorgeous Lady Cordelia original that Cory sent last week.  I keep spotting the baby quilt in different spots of the house and it looks amazing everywhere -- the sofa, piled high with dollies, wrapped around a kid's shoulders as a superhero cape. You must check out her lovely shop!  Right now.  Go ahead, I'll wait.

:: finally determining my word of the year - grace.  I feel there is much to be learned from this word.

:: thankful for the many women who have shown kindness to me this week. 

:: helping with research on Thomas L. Jennings for an upcoming school project.

:: a hug for the letter carrier.  Sound funny?  She is simply so friendly, and her bad knees have kept her from our route for awhile.  She was a bit of sunshine in our overcast days.

:: a few moments of Doctor Who with Honey.  Who knew I could be swayed to enjoy a bit of sci-fi.

:: spreading the word about this Mama Scout Family Lab.  She is offering it for free.  Amy, the Scout Leader is amazing, the lab is amazing!

:: a bit of screens for the kids.  A bit of fresh air for me.

:: breakfast for dinner.  Nothing quite like pancakes with maple syrup at night.

:: anticipating a slice of quiet when I can settle down and soak in the pages of the latest Taproot.  The cover art is breathtakingly beautiful, I can't wait to see what is inside.

:: Legos.  Legos.  Legos.  Always.

:: a young boy who finished the Harry Potter series.  He is proud of himself.   So are we.

:: Getting ever closer to an announcement for gladsome 2013.  It is so hard for me to be patient.

Wishing you and yours a lovely weekend!

this week's ride

It's been quite a week.  Quite. A. Week.

The better part of my time has been spent squinting through swollen eyes rendering me a close cousin to Rocky Balboa.  But without his fighting spirit.

By Tuesday evening I was in tears while making dinner.  I was going to call someone.  But what could I say?  That I'm crying over laundry?  That I'm scrounging a dinner because we had not yet managed our weekly grocery shopping?  That my face resembled a boxer losing a fight because somehow I had forgotten over the winter that my tree allergies flare up each spring?  That I don't know how I could even possibly forget something like that?

Later in the week, as I went to the elementary school to pick up my sons, I opened the back of the minivan and discovered a wide open space where the stroller should be. I stood there staring, trying to make sense of what I saw.  Slowly it came to me that I must have left it in the church parking lot from a stop earlier in the day.  In. The. Parking. Lot. Twenty. Minutes. Away.

So that explains why I was walking in my sons' school with Pal strapped to my back in the hiking pack.  Funny enough he loved it.  And I received oohs and ahhs from the teachers.  One very generous teacher gushing that "no wonder you look so great, you are super-mom to take four kids hiking, in the snow no less, and you bring me homemade bread." I assured her I am not super-mom. But thank you.  Oh so very much. 

As it turns out I'm not the first mom to forget her stroller in that church parking lot.  Really.  And that I gave the staff a good chuckle.  I'll take that.

Just like I will take the afternoon I spent having coffee with a friend.  After the tears Tuesday night I invited her to come over Wednesday afternoon.  It gave me that boost needed to do a quick tidy up, put the sugar in the wedding present crystal sugar bowl, and have cookie batter ready for fresh-baked cookies as we connected over coffee and kids. She brought me a goodie bag to combat the swollen face.  Such goodie goodness from the generous women I know.

Like another friend that helped me laugh my way to the weekend.  She and I spent Thursday evening in Starbucks, and like true friends should, we quickly made our way to sharing a depth of understanding of each other, filled with compassion and free of judgement.  

Ah, just what I needed.  Similar to the special package I received in the mail from a dear blogging friend.  (More of which you'll see later.) And the unexpected delivery of homemade caramel corn from a former colleague.  How could she have known it's sugary yumminess was exactly what I needed at that minute of my day, of my week?

My eyes are still a bit swollen.  But this morning I took a solo hike breathing cool fresh air, leaving my tracks in the dusting of snow among those very trees that are causing some discomfort.  

I thanked the trees for their oxygen, forgave them for their angst.

this moment {observation day}

Joining Soulemama, and many others, in this moment. 

In Amanda's words: "A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

Please link to your moment too -- I love to see what you are enjoying this week!

Wishing you a weekend full of goodness!

interim

I don't want to seem obsessive about my purse.  Maybe I am.

Somehow I feel compelled to keep talking about this. Much like I have the compulsion to talk to my husband about how much laundry I am never-endingly doing.  Moving on...

Since the big dump last week, half of my purse contents remain in the grocery bag, the other half in a cloth tote bag.  Neither very useful.  I think the paper grocery bag has normalized  because one of my kids asked if it was actually my purse.  Really, they asked.

Buying a new purse is on my list.  Just below scheduling dentist appointments and just above sending in spring soccer registration forms.  (Did I just admit how pedestrian in a soccer-momish way my existence is?)  Moving on...

This morning I had the thought to get an old purse from the attic for the interim.  A wool plaid number that my Mom gave me before I had kids.  Kicky and cute don't you think?

Then I realized it might not work, since this is what was in my old purse (minus the camera!)

Count with me....1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.  Yes, eight journals.  Can I really have that many coherent, important thoughts in my head to need eight journals in my purse?  Unlikely.  Moving on...

So I resigned myself to using another pre-children purse that I knew would be big enough, but that I've been embarrassed to actually use for the past decade.

I bought in Vancouver at the Roots store.  You know, the company that can outfit an Olympic team in style.  It is leather and sturdy and a kicky cute color.  I bought it because I had not seen a single other purse like it.  Not.  A. Single. One.  It just so happens I bought the original style of what became a grossly imitated fashion trend that rendered my, quite expensive (ahem) all-leather bag a veritable fashion leftover within months.  I was not happy.  Quite not happy.  Moving on...

At least all of my soccer-momish purse items fit.  Not perfectly, but good enough for the interim.

All I need to do now is figure out a way to carry it so no one can see my initial on the one side lest they presume I believe I am rocking that over-done purse fad of 2003.